


Not a Robot

by speakingwosound (sev313)



Category: Stargate - All Series, Stargate Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-28
Updated: 2013-06-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:06:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/861837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sev313/pseuds/speakingwosound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The accent is the same, lilting and sharp and so Scottish, and it pulls at Young’s chest.  It’s a reminder of how strange this all is, Rush lying so pale and cold in the infirmary and them both <i>inside the ship</i>, which seems dangerous even by <i>Destiny</i> standards. Young reaches out a hand to steady himself and Rush takes it and he feels warm and steady and there and Young grasps a little harder than he should.</p><p>Rush frowns. “If you want sex, all you need to do is ask.  I don’t need all the theatrics.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Robot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Teaotter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/gifts).



> This was written for [teaotter](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Teaotter/pseuds/Teaotter) for the [Not Prime Time 2013 Challenge](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/notprimetime2013). Thank you, teaotter, for the wonderful prompt. I tried to capture the feeling you so hauntingly described – I hope I was at least a bit successful!
> 
> Title comes from Andrew Bird’s [_Not a Robot, But a Ghost_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeESldwIF8M)
> 
> This takes place after the SGU episode “Epilogue” (S02E18).

Everett Young is relieved when they drop the Novus settlers on their new planet. It had been nice, in a way, to have them on board. New faces, new stories around the dinner table; but also more mouths to feed and living quarters needing life support. Rush had been spending even more time than usual huffing over consoles, snapping things about energy reserves and power outputs, claiming that _Destiny_ wasn’t happy with the strain on her resources. As seemed to happen more and more lately, Young’s instinct had been to take Rush’s concerns seriously. And, frankly, the way the settlers had stared at him as if he was their king and savior had started making his skin itch.

While they were on board, he had taken a leaf out of Rush’s book and started hiding out in little used corridors and small conference rooms. He’d found that the quiet eased the ache in his skull, so that the low-grain headache that has been his constant companion since Icarus seemed to be wedged just a little gentler into his mind. 

“Colonel.”

Young had chosen this conference room out of a desperate need to complete next week’s duty rosters, mostly due to its out-of-the-way location down a mostly deserted corridor. Or so he had thought. He looks up to see Rush standing in the doorway, his own laptop under his arm, frowning at Young as if he hadn’t figured on running into anyone this far out. Which, he probably hadn’t expected to run into Young anymore than Young had expected to run into him.

“You’re not on the bridge. I figured, with the settlers gone, you’d have gone back to giving orders to your military grunts from there.”

Young shrugs. “It’s quiet here. I have paperwork to do.”

Rush holds up his laptop, then pauses, as if unsure of what to do now that his initial plan was disrupted. He runs a hand through his hair, and now that Young has a chance to look at him closely for the first time over the last ten days, he sees that Rush looks worn out, tired, unkempt. More than usual, anyway. Rush makes to turn. “Well, I’ll just find another empty room. Good day.”

“I’ll be quiet if you will.” Young doesn't know what makes him say it, except that, racking his brain, he suddenly can’t remember the last time anyone said they’d seen Rush outside of his scheduled bridge shifts, and even for Rush that’s a little reclusive.

Rush hesitates for a moment, but then he steps into the room, putting his laptop down on the table across from Young. He doesn’t say anything more, and the room quickly fills with the sounds of laptop keys, paper rustling, and the scratching of Rush’s stubbed pencil on the remnants of his last notepad. Young makes a quick note to talk to Barnes about some of the materials they have in hydroponics, to see if they can scrape anything together to make replacement pencil and paper.

They work quietly, companionably, for about an hour before the sounds stop. Young glances up to see Rush starring at him. He frowns. “What?”

Rush pauses, as if considering bolting, but then he says, quietly. “I’m sorry about TJ.”

Young saves the document he’s working on and shuts his laptop. “Yeah. She’s pretty torn up about it.”

Rush raises an eyebrow. “And you?”

“And me what?”

“Are you? Torn up about it?”

“What kind of question is that?” Young asks, feeling instantly defensive and irrationally angry and he slams his fist down on the table next to his laptop, ignoring Rush’s quick flinch. “She’s one of my best officers, our only medic.”

Rush stares at him. “I didn’t mean professionally, Colonel.” Rush wipes his hair out of his eyes. “I saw the kino footage. You were married, on Novus.” Although his voice is low, he almost spits the word, and Young tilts his head, his anger momentarily assuaged.

“We were.”

“All I’m saying is-”

“Different timeline, Rush. We were different people. Or so Eli keeps telling me.”

Rush looks down at the table, where his fingers are fiddling anxiously with his pencil. “Sort of. We were the same people, just diverged at the point where they dialed the gate to Earth.”

“Sure.” Young frowns, leaning forward, trying to figure out why they’re talking about this, but hoping that, maybe, it connects somehow to why Rush has been surlier than usual since they found the settlers. “But from that point on, we’re different, right?”

Rush nods, but doesn’t say anything more.

Young wants to hit him, a feeling that, surprisingly, he hasn’t had for a while, and it’s an unpleasant reminder of how tenuous their recent truce is. He forces himself to pause, and reach for something, anything, to figure out what’s going on here. “I’m not going to marry TJ, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Rush’s head snaps up. “It’s not.” But something in the way his eyes are burning suggests that he’s lying, at least in part, and Young pauses. Huh.

“What _are_ you asking?”

“Nothing.” Rush starts to gather his things into a pile on top of his laptop. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Rush-” On instinct, Young reaches out to rest his fingers over Rush’s wrist. “The thing with TJ? It was over. A long time ago.”

Rush pulls his hand away, but he doesn’t move any further to leave. “Why are you telling me this?”

Young shrugs. He’s not sure if he knows himself. “You seem to need to hear it.”

“I don’t-” Rush frowns. “Have you been talking to Mr. Volker?”

“Should I have been?”

“He has a theory - not a very good one-” Rush looks down at his pile and starts fiddling with his pencil again. “ - that because I was not a founding member of the colony, I am a dispensable member of this crew.”

Young startles at that, and Rush must have noticed, because he lets out a deprecating little laugh that sounds strange coming from him. “Don’t pretend you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

“I wasn’t,” Young insists, for once able to do so with complete honesty. “You came back. You saved all our lives. _This_ crew’s lives.”

“Did I? Would you have been better off on the planet? Pairing off, having children, building schools and houses and reclaiming your lives.”

Rush is usually pretty easy to read, but right now, Young can’t tell anything from the tone of his voice. “You can’t believe that.”

“I don’t.” Rush looks up to catch his eyes. “But do you?”

“No.” Young says, without thinking. Rush raises an eyebrow, and Young pauses for a moment, to really think about it. Yes, from watching the kino footage, it seems like he had made a life there. He had TJ, a family, a house of his own, good, honest work planting and building and leading a new settlement. But he also remembers the rough years; the funerals, the losses, and, sitting here now, it seems inconceivable to take on something that monumental without Rush at his side. He doesn’t look away as he repeats, more forcefully, “No. We’re here. We’re meant to be here. _Destiny’s_ mission, remember?”

Rush doesn’t move for a long moment, then he pushes his hand through his hair again and stands. “Yes, yes, of course.” He gathers up his things. “I have a bridge shift.”

Once he’s gone, Young re-opens his laptop. He doesn’t have a shift for a few more hours, but as he struggles to turn his attention back to his work, he can’t help thinking that that conversation had been a test and that, somehow, he had failed.

***

It’s already been a long night when Young crawls into bed at close to midnight. The kitchen had served a new purple berry for dinner that had set off allergic reactions in Eli and James; Volker had accidentally turned off the life support in their living quarters rather than in the newly-vacated spaces the settlers had been inhabiting; and even Chloe hadn’t escaped Rush’s wrath when she had miscalculated a drop out of FTL that left them in the middle of open space for a couple of hours before they could jump back. After yelling for a few minutes, Rush had looked more exhausted than angry, and if Young didn’t have a shift first thing in the morning, he would have offered to finish Rush’s for him so that the man could get a decent night’s sleep.

Instead, after assurances that everything would be okay with some fiddling from the science team, Young had left with a hand on Rush’s shoulder and a promise that he’d be woken if anything happened.

He hadn’t expected his radio to crackle to life only a few hours after he had gone to bed, though. 

“Colonel Young?”

It’s Matt’s voice, and Young swears as he fishes around in his bed for the radio. “What is it?”

“We need you in the infirmary. It’s Rush.”

Young mumbles something inappropriate for the radio and swings out of bed. His body is half-asleep, and his knee still aches after the extended stress of the day. After his disastrous trip through the gate from Icarus, TJ had warned him that the knee would never be the same again, and after days like today, he’s inclined to trust TJ’s word on this.

“What is it this time?”

Matt and Brody are standing a few steps from one of the hospital beds. Behind them, Young can Rush lying in the bed, sheet folded around his waist as TJ works on him. Matt nods at Young as he enters. “We found him bent over a console.”

Young raises an eyebrow at him. “And this required a trip to the infirmary?”

Brody crosses his arms and doesn’t tear his eyes away from the machines around Rush’s bed. “We couldn’t wake him up.”

Young sighs. He knew he should have sent Rush to bed after the Chloe incident. “Maybe he was in a deep sleep. The man’s exhausted,” he offers, hopefully.

“Yes, he is.” TJ comes up to them, brushing her hair off her forehead and resting a hand on her hip. “But, that’s not why he’s not waking up. I’ve never seen brain waves quite like this. He’s in a deep coma, but-” She trails off, and Young frowns.

“What?” He glances at Brody. “What aren’t you telling me?”

TJ looks at Brody, who shrugs. “I don’t know. These-” He points to a set of waves on the rigged Ancient EKG machine. “They’re not human.”

“Does this have to do with what was happening to Chloe a few months back?” Young asks, surprised at the sharp stab of fear that flashes through him. The Nakai had Rush at the same time they had Chloe, and no one had ever been able to explain why they had changed Chloe and not him.

Brody shakes his head. “No. These energy readings, they suggest something mechanical.”

Young frowns. “Like- like a robot?” He sounds incredulous to his own ears.

“No, not a robot,” Brody sighs, dropping his arms to his side. “I don’t know, Colonel. I think we should wait ‘til Eli wakes up. Have him take a look.”

“And Eli is-?”

“Sleeping off his allergic reaction,” TJ jumps in. “We shouldn’t wake him, unless it’s an emergency.”

“Right.” Young remembers now. Purple berries. He glances around, sees James and Eli, both looking a little purple, sleeping in the beds along the far wall, and sighs again. “Is this an emergency?”

Brody looks a little pained as he rubs his forehead. TJ looks at Rush. “I don’t think so. Nothing that can’t wait a few hours, anyway.”

“Okay.” Young takes them all in, then limps over to Rush’s bed. The man looks like he’s sleeping peacefully, better, in fact, than he probably has in months. “He looks fine to me, and some forced rest might do him so good. I’m going back to bed. Radio me when Eli gets up, or if there’s any change.”

***

Young gets another few hours of restless sleep, before he gives up and heads back to the infirmary. TJ is standing over Eli’s bed, her fingers pressed against his wrist and, as Young enters, Eli calls him over. TJ chastises him for ruining her counting of his pulse, and he sits back, lips pursed, as Young makes his way over to them.

After 30 seconds, TJ looks up with a slight smile. “Pulse is normal. You’re good to go.”

“Finally,” Eli hops off the bed, straightening his shirt and immediately walking over to Rush’s bedside. 

Young follows slowly. “Any change?” He stops by Rush’s shoulders, pressing his hip into the bed to take his weight off his still-aching knee. 

TJ must have noticed, because she’s frowning at him as she answers. “None.”

“These-” Eli is pointing at the brainwaves on the rigged EKG machine. “These are similar to what we saw when Rush was in the chair.”

“When he figured out the base code?” _And lied to us_ , Young wants to add, but Eli’s brow is furrowed in that way it is when he’s close to figuring something out, so Young bites his tongue.

“Yeah,” Eli murmurs distractedly. He pulls out his tablet, connecting it to the machine and flipping through screens, making little noises high in his throat that set Young’s teeth on edge. 

He waits a full three minutes before he growls, “What?”

“Hmm?”

“What did you find?”

“Oh,” Eli glances up as if just remembering that Young and TJ are there. He smiles a bit apologetically. “Ahh, it’s _Destiny_.”

“ _Destiny_?”

“The ship, yeah.”

“Eli-” Young threatens, putting his weight on both his feet and placing his hand on the butt of his gun.

Eli waves towards the EKG machine. “These waves. They’re not Rush’s. They’re _Destiny’s_.”

TJ moves up next to Young, crossing her arms. “The ship is in Rush’s head?”

“Yeah. No. Maybe?” Eli frowns apologetically at them. “I think Rush might be in the ship.”

“ _In_ the ship?” The back of Young’s neck feels cold with sweat and he reaches up to rub at his aching temples. “Like Gin and Parry?”

Eli shrugs. “I need some time.”

“An hour.”

“I’ll try.”

“Eli.”

“Yeah, yeah, an hour. Got it.”

***

It’s three hours before Eli calls Young back to the infirmary. Young would be impressed, if he didn’t feel cold and jumpy and weirdly off-balance. He had spent the first hour on the bridge, fidgeting in the command chair, before giving up and joining Matt’s morning bootcamp. By the time Eli calls, Young’s muscles are tense and sore, and he welcomes the opportunity to peel off and jog to the infirmary.

“What’d you find?” He asks, coming to a stop next to Rush’s bed and struggling to catch his breath.

Eli’s fidgeting with chords and wires and he doesn’t look up from his laptop as he answers. “Remember the no-win simulation _Destiny_ put you through a few months back?”

Young narrows his eyes at Eli as he stretches his sore knee. He’s not likely to forget the Nakai attacks, the feeling of helplessness as _Destiny_ and her crew were destroyed around him, the crippling self-recrimination. It had felt real, so real.

At Young’s non-response, Eli looks up. “Right, of course you do, stupid question. Anyway, I knew that Rush’s brainwaves reminded me of something and, that’s it. They’re exact replicas of yours when you were having that _Destiny_ -induced recurring nightmare.”

Young looks down at Rush, whose face is pale and unmoving. “So, he’s not unconscious, he’s dreaming?” 

“Well, no.” Eli frowns down at Rush, “That’s the thing. He is unconscious. Has been for hours.”

“I lost it after only a couple hours of that simulation.”

“I know.”

Young decides to ignore that comment. Rush has been in there for hours. “What are the implications of this?”

Eli shrugs. “I don’t know. Something bad. Really bad.”

Young has to force down a shiver as he thinks about it, long, continuous, uninterrupted hours inside that simulation, and he speaks before he’s processed the thought. “Can you get me in there with him?”

“In where?” Eli asks, typing into his laptop distractedly, then his fingers stop and he looks up. “In the simulation?”

“Yeah.”

“Ahh, yeah. Probably. But-”

“What?”

“I don’t know what’s happening there, in the simulation, in Rush’s mind, and- I can’t tell you what you’re getting into and-.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” Young growls. “Do it.”

“And I can’t promise that I can get you out again.”

“Eli.”

“Okay, okay, just, give me a minute.” 

Young stretches out on the bed next to Rush’s, closing his eyes as Eli and TJ work around him, connecting his arms to wires and IVs and, then, it’s over.

TJ doesn’t try to talk him out of it, just, “Colonel, I want you to promise me – if you start losing yourself again, you’ll get out of there.” TJ’s voice is soft and Young can’t look at her.

“I can’t promise you that.”

TJ sighs, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Just, try?”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, closing his eyes and leaning back. “Do it, Eli.” 

***

Downtown DC shimmers into focus around him, blessedly familiar as Young recognizes the building that stands over Homeworld Command. He takes a moment to orient himself. He’s still dressed in SGC black, and he reaches into his pockets, thanking Eli for his foresight in programming Young to come through as is, gadgets and clothing and all.

Young pulls out a life signs detector and programs Rush’s information, hoping that it’ll still work. Technically, they are still on _Destiny_ , just, unconventionally, and Young feels a thrill of success as Rush’s dot blinks into life. 

It’s night, but the street is still full of tourists, dressed in sensible sneakers and fanny packs and carrying brightly colored shopping bags, and Young slips in among them as he follows the detector to a bar just off of Pennsylvania.

Rush is at a table for one, notebook open in front of him, alternating between worrying the end of his pencil and sipping what Young would bet a week of kitchen duty is scotch. It’s after ten and the lights are dimmed for mood lighting, a woman on stage singing easy jazz, and the light buzz of conversation is eroticized. Young takes a seat at the bar, angled so that he can watch the back of Rush’s head without turning his body too far.

“What can I get you?” The bartender is dressed in a tight black t-shirt that pulls and bunches as he leans his elbows on the counter in front of Young.

“Maker’s Mark. On the rocks.” Young glances at Rush and sighs. “A double.”

The bartender turns slowly, making sure that Young sees his leather pants as he leans over to pull the Whiskey from the shelf. “Tough day?”

“You could say that.” Young accepts the glass and takes a long sip. It’s been a long time since he’s had anything other than Brody’s distilled liquor, and he closes his eyes as it goes down. It tastes like Whiskey, it tastes right, like it used to, not like it does when he’s on Earth borrowing someone else’s body and someone else’s taste buds.

The bartender laughs. “I’m Ben.” He holds out his hand.

Young looks at it for a moment before shaking it. “Everett.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Ben leans closer. “Your day?”

Young takes another long swig. His head is already feeling light and foggy as the sounds of the jazz singer and the light conversations around him fill in the cracks in his exhausted mind. “Not particularly.”

“We can talk about something else.” The bartender reaches behind him for the bottle of Maker’s Mark and tops off Young’s glass. “Whatever you’d like.” He winks.

Young stares. He’s generally an observant guy – 12 years in the Stargate program will teach you to pay _some_ attention to what’s going on around you – but it’s been so long since Young’s been in a romantic situation that he hadn’t seen what’s going on here until that wink. 

He bends his knee, the low ache grounding him momentary. “I’m good.”

Ben looks disappointed, but then he shrugs, swishing his hips as he turns and puts the bottle back on the shelf. “Have it your way,” he throws over his shoulder as he saunters to the other side of the bar.

Young sighs. It’s been a long day, and he really hadn’t slept well the night before, knowing that Rush and Eli were in the infirmary. He should get some sleep, if he’s going to figure out what _Destiny_ wants from them in the morning.

He stands, digging through his pockets for the wallet he still carries around _Destiny_ out of habit, when a glass bangs onto the bar beside him.

“Shame to waste good whiskey.”

The accent is the same, lilting and sharp and so Scottish, and it pulls at his chest. It’s a reminder of how strange this all is, Rush lying so pale and cold in the infirmary and them both _inside the ship_ , which seems dangerous even by _Destiny_ standards. Young reaches out a hand to steady himself and Rush takes it and he feels warm and steady and there and Young grasps a little harder than he should.

Rush frowns. “If you want sex, all you need to do is ask. I don’t need all the theatrics.”

Young lets go of Rush’s hand so fast that he almost loses his balance, his bad knee buckling and he sits down hard. He fumbles for his glass and, finding it, he drops his head back to swallow half of it in one go. He closes his eyes, focusing on the burn of the alcohol as it settles deep in his stomach, and when he opens them he catches Rush eyeing him with dark eyes. Young swallows.

“Nicholas.”

Young debates for a second, but then he goes with, “Everett.”

“Strong.”

“Hmm?”

“Everett. It means strong.” Rush is obviously biting back what he actually wants to say about the deficiencies in Young’s intelligence, and it’s so normal that Young grins. Rush makes a disgruntled noise. “You are a very strange man.”

“Surprisingly, not the first time I’ve heard that today.” He takes a much smaller sip of his whiskey. “Why did you think I wanted to-?”

“Fuck me?” Rush shrugs, and Young blames his flash of arousal on the alcohol. “We’re in a gay bar. You’ve been starring at me all night. It is the logical conclusion.”

Young glances around to see that the clientele is overwhelmingly male. The Stargate program should consider revoking his rank if tonight is any indication. He turns back to Rush and rubs his forehead. “I can see why you’d assume that.”

Rush takes a sip of his drink. “Bullocks.”

“I’m not-”

Rush shrugs and finishes off his drink, standing. “Have it your way.”

Young hesitates because, Jesus, this is possibly the worst idea he’s ever had, but he’s here to talk to Rush, to help him, and if he needs to play along for a little while to do that, well, he finishes his drink in one swallow and stands.

Rush smirks at him.

***

Young doesn’t have a chance. Not in the face of this Rush, who is arrogant and smug and self-confidant in the face of something that he wants and, for some reason, Young seems to be what he wants. Young wants to argue, needs to argue, but-

Fuck, that feels good.

It has been so long since someone has touched him. Him, in this body, not his mind in Telford’s body, as Telford’s body reaps the benefits of Emily’s gentle caresses, a barrier between his mental and physical pleasure. It’s gone now. All of it. The barriers, the pain, the memories, all of it. There’s just Rush. Warm skin, talented hands, and Young always knew they would be but, God, Rush’s fingers are working their way under his shirt and he never imagined Rush would be _this_ good.

But, of course, this isn’t Rush. Not his Rush. This is a better adjusted, better dressed, better mannered Rush who probably has more practice with these sorts of things. Or, at least, some practice, which is more than Young has and more than his Rush has, he’d bet a month’s rations on it.

“Stop thinking,” Rush murmurs, loud and hoarse in the scarcely furnished apartment and Young jumps, feeling strangely skittish and raw, and he compensates by pulling Rush closer to him, feeling his body, thin and muscular and dangerous, tense against him.

“Stop thinking,” Young repeats, admonishing, and Rush grunts in annoyance, wrapping a hand in Young’s shirt and pulling him out of the entryway and down the hallway. Young follows without arguing, unable to take his hands off of Rush’s body, pulling and tugging and it’s a war, as everything is between them, and as they tumble to Rush’s bed, Young ends up on top, looking down at Rush and repeating over and over,

_He’s not Rush- He’s not Rush- He’s not-_

Except, there’s this fantasy, unacknowledged even in his most private moments in the dark of his quarters on _Destiny_ , of Rush, backed against the bulkhead, jeans low on his hips and worn shirt pushed under his arms, his dirty hair clasped in Young’s grasp. And as Young leans down, threading a hand through Rush’s hair - cleaner but still long and unruly and stringy from pushing it off his forehead all day – the two Rushs begin to blur and combine in front of his eyes.

Rush’s fingers flying across _Destiny’s_ consoles-

Rush’s voice, hard and hot in anger-

Breath hot and wet against his ear-

Fingers burning along his chest, skin, warm, solid skin-

Rush’s – _Rush’s_ – hair tight in his fingers-

Rush surges up, lips hot and it burns, like their clashes always have, and Young forgets why this is a bad idea as he surrenders to it, this force of will that is Rush in any universe. 

It’s over in a clash of hands and mouth and skin. Young bites his lip, drawing blood as he tries to hold on, hold on until Rush is right there, barely keeping it together. And then Rush buries his head in Young’s neck, groans wet against Young’s skin, and Young is there, his whole body shuddering with the force of it.

“Fuck,” he breathes, hoarse and quiet, as he stretches his legs experimentally. His muscles ache, in that warm, sated way that he’ll never complain about.

“Quite,” Rush agrees, stretching over the side of the bed and throwing a cloth in Young’s direction. Young spares a thought to how prepared Rush is as he cleans himself quickly, but he doesn’t have the energy for more than a raised eyebrow which, predictably, Rush ignores. 

He drops the cloth to the floor, before rolling to the middle of the bed, momentarily surprised when Rush meets him there, skin still flushed and warm under Young’s hands as they drift off.

***

Young wakes a few hours later. It’s still dark, but his skin feels humid and sticky and he has to pee, so he slips from under Rush’s body and pads to the bathroom in the dark. He takes a quick shower, not taking the time to allow his body to react to the night’s events, and puts just his boxers on. He feels better, clean and pleasantly warm and smelling like Rush’s shampoo.

Rush is still sleeping, having spread out to take up both his and Young’s spots now that the bed is all his, and it’s so Rush that Young rolls his eyes as he bypasses the bed on the way to the kitchen. 

He hadn’t been paying attention the last time he was in this hallway, but he doesn’t need to turn on a light. The apartment is full of shadows, cast by the downtown lights filtering through the apartment-wide floor-to-ceiling windows. It’s ostentatious – all beiges and topes and light purples – expensive looking, yet untouched. It’s not Rush, at least not the Rush that Young knows, and Young shivers, in shock as the ghosts of two men brush across his mind.

They feel like an echo, in his mind: the first, his Rush, combative and assertive and paranoid and passionate; the second, this Rush, erasable and lost and just as passionate and, now, in some way, his as well. Young is rapidly finding it hard to determine which is the original and which is the echo.

Even Rush’s cupboards seem unopened, and Young gives up on finding a glass in favor of pulling an unopened water bottle from the refrigerator. He drinks half in one go, before moving over to the living room windows. He’s pictured Rush in Colorado Springs or Glasgow or even London, but not in the political, cosmopolitan, capital that is DC, and the skyline is jarring.

He feels a little better when he sees that the windows are covered in equations, floor to as high as Rush can reach on his toes, scrawled in white magic marker. It’s comforting, seeing Rush’s scrawl, scratched on every available surface in barely-legible jumbles of numbers and signs and letters. It even looks familiar, the equations themselves, and Young takes another step forward, reaching his hand up to trace over one section that jars something in his memory.

It’s written in Ancient. A language that this Rush doesn’t know, can’t know, and Young stumbles back, shivering in the chill and his tiredness. He turns away, grabbing another bottle from the fridge and walking back to the bedroom without a look back. Setting the extra bottle on Rush’s side of the bed, he slips back in, maneuvering Rush over to his side of the bed. He’s still cold, shivering, and he rolls over to sleep buried in Rush’s side.

***

When Young wakes again, Rush is gone. His clothes are piled on a chair and there’s a full pot of coffee in the kitchen with the equivalent of a ‘don’t call me, I’ll call you’ letter that Young throws away without reading twice. In the light of day, he can barely see the equations on the windows, but he pulls out his phone and takes pictures of them anyway. He’s going to need help with them.

It’s been a long time since Young’s been at Homeworld Command in his own body, and he feels disoriented and off-balance, even though everything is exactly as it was last time he used the stones. Unerringly, he heads straight to General O’Neill’s office, before he’s stopped by O’Neill’s dower, blonde, high-heeled secretary.

“General O’Neill isn’t taking visitors today.”

Young frowns at her. “I need to see him.” She smacks her gum. “Today.” He sighs. “I’m Colonel Everett Young.”

“I don’t know a Colonel Young.”

He points to the patch on his shoulder. “ _Destiny_?”

“Never heard of it.” She turns away, shuffling the file folders on her desk. 

Knowing a brush off when he hears one, he leans his hands against the desk, bending his back to look her in the eye. “It’s classified.”

She shrugs, picking up her phone and smacking her gum again. “Sir, there’s a Colonel Young here to see you . . . No, I hadn’t heard of him either. Insists he’s part of a classified project called Fate or Shalom or-” _Destiny_ , Young mouths. “Destiny . . . Yes, sir.” She puts the phone down and starts typing.

“So?”

Without looking up, she waves her hand towards the door. “You can go in.”

“Thanks,” he tells her, voice low and dripping with false charm. He pushes open O’Neill’s door, unsurprised to find him leaning back in his chair, feet on a pile of paperwork on the desk, bouncing a green and purple ball against the ceiling.

Young stands, feet shoulder-width apart and hands clasped behind his back. “General.”

O’Neill catches the ball and places it on the desk, before dropping his feet and leaning his elbows on the papers. “Colonel.” His voice is slow, measured, as his eyes trace Young’s body.

“General, I-.”

O’Neill interrupts him. “Who are you?”

“Colonel Everett Young.”

“So Tracey said.”

“ _Destiny_.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Former Commander of Icarus base.”

“Nope.”

“Sir,” Young pauses, rolling his shoulders and easing the weight on his knee. It’s aching today, worse than it has since he stopped using the crutch months ago, and it takes an effort not to think about the sex that tweaked it. “I’ve stood in this office many times.”

“Never seen you before.”

“We solved the mystery of the ninth chevron, ended up on an Ancient ship billions of light years from the Milky Way.”

O’Neill’s back straightens, and his expressions grows guarded. “Never heard of ‘em. Ancients you say?”

Young frowns. “The ancestors.”

“My ancestors are from Dublin. Got out just before the Revolution. Lucky, too.”

“Sir-.” Young pauses. “I’m not a reporter.”

“That’s a relief. I hate reporters.”

“I’m a member of the Stargate program.”

“I see the patch on your shoulder.”

“As are you.”

“Am I?” O’Neill glances down at his shirt. “I’m not wearing a patch.”

Young is starting to feel sorry for any race that made first contact with SG-1. “I joined the program in 1997. Five years on SG-12, three years at the Alpha site, two on Icarus as we figured out the ninth chevron. It was my last tour. I was set to retire, but escaped to _Destiny_ with the others when Icarus was destroyed.”

“Who _are_ you?”

“Colonel Everett Young.”

“Yeah, I still don’t know you. Where did you get your information?”

“I was the commander of a Stargate outpost.”

“Where was that?”

“Icarus base.”

“On-?”

Young sighs. “Icarus. P6X-473. Near Tulak. As near as anything is in that section of space.”

O’Neill looks impressed despite himself. “Where’d you hear that name?”

Young shrugs. “Been there.”

O’Neill raises an eyebrow. “Been there?”

“Yes. About eight years ago. Served as security detail during the Jaffa Council negotiations.”

“I don’t know who you are, but you sure know a lot of classified information.” Young sighs, shuffling again, his knee feeling swollen and burning slightly. He also feels the beginning of a headache at the base of his spine. O’Neill waves his hands at one of the chairs. “Sit down before you collapse.”

Young shakes his head. “I’m fine. Old wound.”

“Got a few of those myself.”

Young nods.

“You seem to know a lot about me.”

“You’re my commanding officer.”

“And I know surprising little about you. In fact, I know nothing about you.”

“Colonel Everett Young.”

“I got that.” O’Neill pushes aside a stack of papers, uncovering a mug that he downs in one swallow. “I need something stronger. You want something?”

“No.”

“I should throw you in the brig.”

Young shrugs noncommittally. “Always knew I was likely to end up there someday.”

O’Neill shakes his head. “For a guy who waltzed into a government facility spouting off confidential information and waving around a fake ID badge, you’re rather cavalier.”

Young raises his eyebrows as he stretches his knee. It’s starting to throb. He needs to end this conversation. “Look, I can’t give you details, but I know that you’ve been in situations like this before, with the Quantum Mirror and solar flares.”

“Solar flares?”

“I will never forget the image of you in that bandana.” O’Neill’s eyes narrow and Young quickly adds, “Sir.”

O’Neill watches him for a long, long moment before he finally leans over and presses a key on his intercom. “Daniel, get in here. Now.”

They stand in awkward silence, O’Neill with his feet up on his desk and Young standing in front of him, kneading the back of his neck and willing his headache to recede, until the door bangs open.

“What? I was in the middle of a translation from PCS-579 and-” He stops when he sees Young. “Who are you?”

Young holds out a hand. “Colonel Everett Young.”

Daniel takes his hand, “Daniel Jackson.”

“I know.”

Daniel looks at O’Neill, not letting go of Young’s hand, but O’Neill just waves a hand at Young. “He came through a solar flare or-” he looks pointedly at Young.

“Computer malfunction,” Young offers.

“- a computer malfunction.” O’Neill finishes, and Young shuffles uncomfortable as Daniel and O’Neill seem to have a silent conversation. Finally, Daniel lets go of his hand and takes one of the seats across from O’Neill’s desk. 

“You need our help getting back?” Daniel asks. “If it has something to do with computers, we should bring McKay in on this.”

Young takes the other seat and pulls out his phone, flipping through his pictures until he gets to the ones he took of Rush’s windows. “I need your help before I go back.”

O’Neill drops his boots to the ground and leans forward. “Carter always said not to change things.”

“That’s time travel,” Daniel says, glancing at Young and squinting at the phone in his hands. “Is that Ancient?”

“Yeah.” Young hands over his phone. “I assume you haven’t solved the problem of the ninth chevron?”

O’Neill and Jackson exchange glances. “How do you know about that?”

Young ignores the question. “In my universe, it was solved by a mathematician, Dr. Nicholas Rush.”

Daniel frowns. “I’ve heard that name.”

“Yeah.” Young shrugs. “Apparently in this universe he’s some famous architect or something.”

“Oh,” Daniel’s eyes light up. “Right. I read an article about him a few years back. President Hayes brought him over from Glasgow to design the National Library.”

“Sure.” Young shrugs again, then looks pointedly at the phone still hanging in Daniel’s hands. “He’s dreaming in Ancient. About the ninth chevron.”

O’Neill whistles under his breath and Daniel hands the phone over, before turning back to Young. “You want us to bring him in?”

“I think you need to. I think that’s why I’m here.”

“He knows Ancient. How do we know he’s not a Goa’uld or possessed by the Lucian Alliance or some other entity?” O’Neill is still flipping through the pictures. “We usually have a vetting process. It takes years to get the clearance for something like this.”

Young shrugs. “You don’t. But, he knows the answer. Does it really matter who he’s working for as long as he gets you to the ninth chevron address? As long as we’re ready for the fall-out.”

O’Neill tilts his head. “I like you.”

“You trained me, sir.”

“I did good.” He turns to Daniel. “Go talk to this Rush fella, will you?”

Daniel nods and O’Neill stands, handing Young back his phone and shaking his hand. He holds it for a minute, pulling Young closer over the desk. His knee is really aching, now, and he has to stutter on his other foot to stay upright. “Just so we’re on the same page, I don’t trust you, either.”

“Wouldn’t expect otherwise.”

“Daniel’s more dangerous than he looks.”

“I know.” Young smiles, a little wryly. “From experience.”

O’Neill releases his hand. “Now, get out of my office. I have an important game of solitaire to get back to.”

***

It’s dark by the time they get outside Homeworld Command and get into the cab. The ride to Rush’s apartment is awkward and quiet, mostly filled with Daniel asking questions that Young can’t answer for fear of giving away how utterly his own universe had fucked up the whole ninth chevron thing. He needs Daniel’s help, and he’s surely not going to get it if Daniel finds out how quickly this whole thing could go bad. Plus, his headache has spread from his neck to settle in the back of his eyes, and he’s not sure he was the energy to duel with Daniel right now.

“So,” Young says, quietly, as they pull up in front of Rush’s apartment building. “He’s a little,” he searches for an accurate word, before settling on, “skittish. It might be better if I go in first.” Young cringes. “And, trust me, I know how suspicious that sounds.”

And thank god that, despite everything, Daniel is still the most trusting man Young has ever met, because he just nods like it’s a good idea. “I’ll wait outside the apartment.”

The elevator ride is longer than he remembers. He wipes his palms on the thighs of his BDUs, inexplicably nervous as he thinks about the last time he was in the elevator with Rush’s hands on the waistband of these same pants, his fingers talented and chilled and Young has to force his mind onto other things as he knocks quickly on the door.

He hears swearing and banging on the other side of the door, and when Rush opens it, his hair is disheveled and he’s dressed in expensive dark jeans and a loose white button-down, a marker dangling in his fingers. “Go away. I don’t want whatever you’re-” He stops when he sees Young, surprise and suspicion fighting with a smile at the corner of his mouth. “You.”

“Yeah.” Young buries his hands in his pockets. “Can I come in?”

“I’m busy.”

“Okay,” Young agrees, but he doesn’t move.

“My one-night stands usually have the decency to avoid me afterwards.”

Young shrugs. “I’m not good at following directions.” His headache pulses and, without warning, he’s hit by a wave of dizziness that leaves him gripping the door jam and Rush’s hand wrapped around his bicep.

Rush squeezes. “Come in before you collapse.” He leads Young into the kitchen and leans him against the kitchen island. 

“Sorry,” Young murmurs, resting his injured knee on the rung of the stool next to him. “This headache keeps getting worse.”

Rush raises an eyebrow as he pulls a bottle of water from the fridge, handing it over. “You should faint at your own apartment.”

“I need to-” Young’s finding it hard to talk through the pressure in his head, and he points to the windows. In the dark, the equations stand out clearly on the glass. “Those equations. We need to talk about them.”

Rush’s whole body straightens defensively and he takes two large steps away from Young. “How do you know about those?” 

“They’re on your windows, genius.” Young’s head and knee are throbbing in synchrony now, and he should really sit down, but Rush’s eyes are wide and Young doesn’t want that, he wants- 

He wants _Destiny_ to- to- do something with the ninth chevron address and he wants to kiss Rush and push him against the command chair and then, and then something will happen and Young doesn’t remember as he grasps beyond the pressure in his head, but there’s nothing there and he can’t remember he can’t remember and the world’s growing dark as his mind is pulled away and Rush is backing away, which doesn’t make sense because Rush should be fixing this, like he always does, a ninth inning save and then Young can’t remember anything as the world goes black.

***

Everything aches, a low pressure throb in his head and his knee and his shoulders and, when he tries to remember where he is, or where he was last, he gets flashes of Rush’s eyes and lines of equations and TJ’s worried face floating over him and, “I don’t remember anything,” he croaks out, throat dry and hoarse as he opens his eyes to see the infirmary take form around him.

“Don’t move,” TJ says softly, her hand on his shoulder as she presses him back. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful,” he admits. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember?” It’s Eli’s voice, anxious and rapid and why is Eli in the infirmary?

“I was-” Young starts, defensively, taking stock of the way his whole body feels like it’s been squeezed between universes and everything slams home – _Destiny’s_ idea of an Ancient obstacle course, Rush lying cold and pale on a hospital bed, Rush warm and alive and active as they undress each other, the equations, the ninth chevron, Rush’s face worried and scared and – “I have to get back. You have to send me back.”

“Shh,” TJ puts her hand on his wrist, a gentle pressure that’s meant to be comforting but is anything but. “You’re alright.”

“He’s not, he’s- God,” he tells her, rolling his arm over so that he can grasp her wrist. “I have to go back.”

“Colonel, you’re hurting me.”

“Fuck.” Young lets go quickly. “Sorry, TJ. I just-”

“Need to go back, so you said.” She takes a step back to fiddle with his IV. “It’s not a good idea.”

“TJ-” Young sighs, dropping his head back against the pillow and fighting the growing pressure in his head. “It’s important.”

“Colonel-” She looks over his head and he turns his head, following her gaze to Eli, who’s sitting at his bedside, computer balanced precariously in his lap. 

Eli looks at TJ, then tilts his head. “Ahh, yeah, Colonel, these readings aren’t good. _Destiny_ doesn’t want you in there. She’s pressing on your mind and so far I’ve been able to keep her at bay, but she’s getting stronger and I can’t hold her off.”

“The headache?”

“Yeah, that’s _Destiny_. She’s trying to push you out.”

“Why?”

Eli shrugs. “I don’t know.” He glances to his other side, to Rush lying in the same hospital bed he was last time Young saw him. Young can’t look away, even as Eli keeps talking. “I think she wants him to do this alone. I guess, if this is a test of his strength or force of will or self-confidence or whatever, then you being there is kind of like cheating.”

“She has an awfully strange conception of cheating. She’s killing him.” He’s still not looking at Eli, and Eli follows his gaze.

“He’s fine,” Eli offers softly. “For now. I think _Destiny_ put up a firewall between his mind and the program. He’ll be fine until he- well, until he fails whatever it is she wants him to do in there.”

“So build me a firewall.”

Eli looks regretful. “I, ah, don’t know how to do that? _Destiny’s_ a really complicated system and this game she has Rush in? It’s advanced. She’s making it very clear that she doesn’t want you there and every time I try to help you in there, she fights me. Any buffer between your mind and it would have to be- advanced. Very advanced. Rush could do it. Probably. But, you know,” he glances over to Rush’s bed, “Rush isn’t available. So, you have me.”

“Eli.” Young narrows his eyes. “Can you do it?” 

Eli backpedals. “I mean, I could figure it out, but it would take time and it doesn’t sound like you wanna hang around for long.”

Young sighs, dropping his head back against the pillow. He can feel a pressure in the back of his mind, the ship or Rush or something equally as frightening, and it’s something he can’t resist. Rush needs him. For once, in the two years they’ve known each other, Rush needs him, and Young can’t ignore that. He can’t.

He rolls his head to look at TJ. “What would happen if you send me back? Without the firewall?”

TJ doesn’t look away from the monitors and when she speaks, her voice is low. “Your heart rate’s up, your brain is swelling, and this-” She points at a reading on the monitor. It’s erratic, appearing in jagged clusters of peaks and valleys. “I don’t know what this is measuring, but it isn’t good.” Her grip on Young’s wrist tightens and she finally looks at him. “You’re not going to last long, but it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“TJ-” Young starts, but there’s nothing he can say that she doesn’t already know just by looking at him. “I don’t think he can do this without me. I don’t think he’s supposed to.”

“Okay.” Which means she doesn’t agree, but she’s not going to argue with him when he’s like this, and when she looks at him, a little sympathetic, a little weary and a little understanding, he knows that she gets it. Perhaps more than he does, and he’s going to have to deal with her later, explain to her, somehow, as least-graphically as possible, a lot of things that he just can’t deal with right now.

“Do it,” he orders, as best he can while lying in bed, sheets pulled up to his chin and feeling as weak and tired as he has since he flew through the Gate to land on _Destiny_ two years ago. It must work, though, because Eli looks down at his laptop and, as Young turns to look at Rush lying, pale and unmoving, on the next hospital bed, the image blurs and he finds himself starring up at a grey ceiling.

His throat feels raw and dry as Rush’s face crystallizes in his vision. “How long?” He asks, and Rush’s eyes, hard and dark and imposing, narrow.

“Six hours.”

“Ah,” Young murmurs because six hours? Fuck. He doesn’t know how he’s going to explain this, not to this Rush, who would find the existence of life on other planets to be a shocking revelation and would never believe it if Young told him about sentient spaceships and Ancient computer games. 

“There’s -” Rush’s jaw clenches and he runs a hand through his hair. “There’s someone here to see you.”

Young looks past him to see Daniel Jackson sitting at Rush’s kitchen counter, writing in a notebook, and, god, Young had forgotten about him. 

“Fuck.”

“Quite.” Rush is sitting on the edge of the coffee table, and he scoots back, resting his elbows on his knees. “He seems to know where I live. And that you – frequent – my apartment.” He speaks slowly, voice dripping with anger and something else that Young can’t quite place, and it hits Young, suddenly, that Rush was worried about him. Which is ridiculous, because Rush doesn’t worry about anything that isn’t run by circuits and binary code, but he can’t shake the thought.

“He was tracking me.” Young pushes himself into a sitting position, ignoring the way the pressure in his head pushes, hard, making it hard to think clearly. “Do you have some Advil?”

Rush holds out a class of water and three Advil that must have been waiting on the coffee table and Young narrows his eyes. Rush shrugs. “You hit your head when you passed out.” He waits for Young to take the pills, before narrowing his eyes again. “I would have appreciated prior warning that you were running from the law.”

“What, between being propositioned at the bar and manhandled into your bedroom?” His voice is tight, his head pounding and he can’t keep seem to get his thoughts under any sort of control. Rush is staring at him, though, eyes still dark and fathomless and unwilling to look away and Young knows that he needs to say something, anything, and, “I’m military,” he offers, because that’s the truth, in some universes at least.

Rush is looking at Jackson, clearly taking in his lack of uniform or military haircut and Young sighs. “Special forces,” he amends, because that’s something approximating reality that Rush will understand and maybe, just maybe, believe.

“And him?” He nods to his kitchen.

“Him, too.”

“Why is he here?” Rush runs a hand through his hair. “In my kitchen?”

“He-” Young sighs. “He’s here to talk to you. About your equations.”

Rush looks caught somewhere between furious and curious, and it’s a look that Young has seen so many times on his Rush that his chest begins to ache and his head rewards him for it with a particularly vicious ripple of pain. 

“They haunt you.” Young ignores his protesting body to lean closer, because he doesn’t have long here and Rush has to listen to him, has to believe him, has to stop looking so pissed off and defensive and trust Young, just this once. “The symbols. I know you Rush. You’re single-minded and determined and so damn headstrong that those equations will drive you mad.”

Rush’s mouth twists, dangerous and familiar, and Young steals himself before Rush can even start speaking, low and harsh. “One fuck does not make you an expert.”

Which- Well, which is fair. Young is so out of his depth here. On one hand, he’s never known anyone like he knows Rush, as an opponent, as an ally, as a lover or whatever the fuck they’re doing here. On the other, this Rush is someone so utterly different and unfamiliar and Young doesn’t know him at all. The thought is more painful than it should be and Young ignores the thought that’s growing, dark and threatening, in the back of his mind, that maybe he’s deeper in this thing than he ever wanted to be.

“If you’ll kindly deal with the two officers in my kitchen,” Rush stands, pushing his notebook into his back pocket and walking out the front door, leaving Young on the couch, unable to follow and unable to say anything to keep him here.

“Fuck.”

“That could have gone better,” Jackson agrees from the kitchen counter and fuck, Young had forgotten he was even still there. And right, as always, because Rush is brilliant and dogmatic and so unwavering when he knows he’s right, but he fights what he doesn’t know and Young remembers how hard he resisted Jackson and the Stargate program in his own universe and Young knows that he handled that all wrong without Jackson telling him.

Young contemplates following Rush, but the pounding in his head is expanding and he needs to rest before he can fight Rush and _Destiny_ at the same time. “I need a minute, then we’ll go after him.” 

“Right.” Jackson looks like he doesn’t believe him, but Young is tired and fuck Jackson and his righteous attitude anyway. Just a few moments, and then he’ll go after Rush. Just a few moments, then he can do this. 

***

It’s still dark when Young wakes this time. His headache has receded to a low throb at the base of his skull and when he flexes his knee he thinks he can stand on it. A walk around the apartment finds it empty of both Jackson and Rush, and he spares Jackson a fleeting thought before grabbing his jacket from the couch and leaving Rush’s apartment.

He wishes he had thought to bring a locator device through with him, but this Rush doesn’t have a tracking device in his neck and Young has a good idea where Rush is, anyway. Rush is nothing if not predictable in his choice of hideaways.

The bar is more crowded than it was the night before. Ben is still at the bar and he gives Young a surprised look and waves him over.

“You went home with the architect last night.” It’s not a question.

“Yeah.” Young glances around them, but doesn’t see Rush in the mass of people. “Have you seen him tonight? I thought I might find him here.”

Ben points to a table in the corner that is being given a wide berth by the other patrons, and Young can see him now, bent over a notepad as he scratches furiously with a pen. There are a number of empty glasses by his right elbow, and a near empty one in his left hand.

“Can I get a whiskey sour, and whatever he’s having,” he orders.

Ben raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t argue as Young hands over a few bills. The smells of sweat and alcohol are already threatening his headache, and he doesn’t have excess energy to argue over Rush’s attitude with anyone but the man himself.

He leaves a large tip as he accepts the drinks and makes his way over to Rush’s table. He slips Rush’s glass in front of him and sits in the seat across from him. Rush looks up, and if he’s surprised he doesn’t let it show, his expression hard and condescending and so like his Rush that it makes Young ache. At least this Rush, though- this Rush he knows how to deal with.

He leans back in his chair, taking a long swig of his drink. “You’re being an ass.” Rush snorts, turning back to his notebook and making a quick notation. Young rolls his eyes. “And you know I’m right.”

“About being an ass?” Rush shrugs. “Probably.”

“About the equations. God, Rush, you are the most infuriating man I have ever met.”

Rush finally looks up. “After only two days? I must commend myself.”

 _After two years_ , Young’s whole body shakes with the effort to keep himself from biting back. But that’s a conversation he can’t have, not here, not now, when he’s fighting with _Destiny_ in his head and this terrified and defensive version of Rush sitting across from him. “Whatever lets you sleep at night, hotshot.”

“I slept plenty last night, thank you,” Rush throws back and it hits Young that they’re flirting. After all that they’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours, Rush is still smiling at him, confident and snide and provocative, sending a shiver of heat down Young’s spine.

It shocks a wry chuckle out of Young. “You’re infuriating.”

Rush shrugs. “That’s a rather mild recrimination.”

Young shrugs. “Wasn’t meant to be anything else.” He takes a sip from his whiskey and feels the alcohol settle with the headache always threatening against his control. He sighs; by Eli and TJ’s counts, there isn’t much time left. “Listen, Nick,” he leans across the table, letting his hands take the weight of his head. “I don’t have a lot of time left.”

Rush’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “Until what happens?”

Young sighs. “It’s not important. All you need to know is that we’re working on a timetable.”

Rush looks like he wants to argue, but then he changes directions. “And what do you want me to do in this undefined amount of time before something unspecified happens?”

“Finish the equations.” Young looks down at the notebook still open in front of Rush. The page is a mess of Ancient symbols and crossed out equations.

“They’re meaningless.” Rush follows Young’s gaze. “They’re just the remnants of dreams.”

“They’re not,” Young insists. “They’re important. They-” He sighs, because security clearance and national security, but, fuck, desperate times and all that. “They lead to another planet.”

“Another planet.” Rush repeats, slowly, as if finally convinced that Young is, in fact, insane.

“Yeah.” Young twists his bicep so that the SGC path is showing. “When I told you I was in special forces earlier, I wasn’t lying. There’s a secret base under Cheyenne Mountain that holds a Stargate. A military-civilian coalition sends people through a wormhole to discover civilizations on other planets.”

“Do you have any idea how insane you sound?”

“You know I’m right.” Young narrows his eyes against the pain in his head. “You’ve dreamed about it. The Stargate. You’ve seen the chevrons. You know the symbols.” Young grabs the notebook and pencil and flips to an open page, drawing the symbol for the Tau’ri. “This is the symbol for Earth. It looks familiar.”

Rush shrugs. “It’s generic.”

Young draws a few others. “What about these? Come on, Rush, you _know_ I’m right.”

“Who are you?” Rush asks, side-stepping the question.

“Colonel Everett Young, US Air Force. I’m the commander of Icarus base.” It’s not entirely a lie. In this universe, at this point in the timeline, that’s what he would have been doing. “A planet twenty light years from Earth. Trying to solve the problem of the ninth chevron, but I’m not a mathematician.”

“I’m an architect.”

“You’re a mathematician.”

Rush looks away. “Maybe. Somewhere. I could have been.”

“You are.” Young promises. “Whatever your job is, whatever your education, you can’t change the way your brain works. It can’t. Math is ingrained in your very make-up.” He flips the notebook back to the last page of equations. “Look at these. You’ve gotten further than anyone else without even knowing what you were solving for.”

“They don’t work.” Rush’s voice is bitter and he looks broken and, in an instant, he looks so familiar that Young is convinced that his Rush is just as broken.

“They will. You just might need some help.” Young tries not to think of Eli and his mother in this universe.

Rush’s eyes flash. “From that Jackson character?”

“Yeah.” Rush flushes with annoyance and alcohol and frustration. “Or someone else at the SGC,” Young amends.

“I think you should go.”

Young doesn’t sit back. He is not going to fuck this up again, even if he has to beat Rush in a force of wills to make it so. He doesn’t have the luxury of giving Rush more time to process while _Destiny_ destroys Young’s mind. “Come on, hotshot. Let’s go back to your apartment.” He throws a few more bills on the table and stands. His head rushes and he reaches for Rush’s shoulder to steady himself.

Rush frowns, shoving his notepad in his back pocket and resting his hand on Young’s bicep. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

Young doesn’t have time for this. He leans forward, wrapping a hand around Rush’s waist for balance as he gathers Rush’s bottom lip between his. The pounding in his head recedes, just slightly. “Your apartment,” he murmurs against Rush’s mouth, voice low and gravelly, and, this time, Rush doesn’t hesitate.

Outside, the air is the peculiar damp cool of spring DC nights, and Young pushes Rush against the brick wall, groaning as the pain falls back, allowing him room to think and feel and talk. “God, Nick,” he murmurs.

“We shouldn’t do this here,” Rush says quietly, stepping back. “You’re military.” 

Instantly, his headache comes back and he feels a sharp pang in his knee. He reaches instinctively for Rush again. 

Rush groans, placing a hand on Young’s chest and Young narrows his entire world down to the area where their bodies connect. “Who _are_ you?” Rush punctuates the question with a bite to Young’s lower lip.

“Everett Young.” He whispers, as if Rush should understand, as if it means something, and it does, here, on this street, outside this bar, with _Destiny_ at their backs and the ninth chevron in front of them, and Young is suddenly sure that everything they’ve been through since Icarus has been leading to this moment. Rush turns his head, hair brushing against Young’s forehead, and Young sees it in Rush’s eyes, too. This is what he needed. This is what Rush needed.

“My apartment,” Rush whispers, hoarsely, and Young doesn’t argue.

They make it to the bedroom, mostly by force of will and the fact that Young isn’t sure he’d be able to stand long enough for anything in the hallway. As it is, he’s shaking with the exertion of staying conscious by the time he sits on the edge of the bed, desperately reaching for Rush and resting his forehead on Rush’s hip as his headache eases and feeling returns, lazily, to his limbs. 

When he can think again, he pushes back, spreading out on his back and pulling Rush down with him. “I’m good,” he murmurs, answering Rush’s unspoken question. “I’m fine, I’m- yeah,” he breathes as Rush’s flicks open the button on his BDU’s. “Good. I’m good.”

“Shh,” Rush whispers against his mouth, looking unconvinced and worried and flushed with arousal. He makes sure not to lose physical contact with Young as he eases down his body, and Young would spare that a worry if he wasn’t focused on the red of Rush’s mouth, kiss-worn and raw and, Jesus, he’s going to- he’s going to- Fuck.

Young is awash in sensations that he can no longer separate: deep, burning arousal; hot stabs of pain shooting through his skull and his knee, his hip and neck and so many other places that he can’t discern; affection, warm and soothing, mixing with aches of longing where his hands tangle in Rush’s hair because, Jesus, he’s never going to have this again. Never. As long as he lives. And he’s never going to be able to forget this. He’s never going to top this, this mess of nerves and emotions and feelings and it’s Rush, his Rush and this Rush and, fuck, Rush’s mouth is on his dick and Young has never, never felt sensations like this.

“Don’t stop,” he says, voice coarse and deep, because it’s the only thought that he can hold on to. Logical and sensible and truthful.

Rush’s fingers tighten on his hips, leaving angry red bruises, as if he, maybe, understands that this one time is going to have to stand in Young’s memory for what should be years of interactions and wild, angry, wonderful confrontations that end just as this one is.

Young’s hips jerk, uncontrolled and unbidden and Rush pulls back, just slightly, to swirl his tongue over the salty signs of Young’s arousal, and Young groans, arching his back and feeling sixteen again, unbelievably aroused and teetering just on the edge of pain and pleasure. It’s too much, and Young has to touch and feel and forget about everything.

He tugs on Rush’s hair, hard enough to leave bruises, and Rush moves up Young’s body, leaving a wet, red, moist bruise on Young’s collarbone as Young works his way into Rush’s jeans. Rush is just as ready as he is and when Young gathers their dicks into his fist, it’s almost too much.

“Fuck,” Rush groans out, pushing into Young’s fist. “Tighter.”

Young complies, tightening his fingers and working them quickly. Rush moves over him, his slim hips jerking and his back arching, neck muscles straining as he shakes his hair out of his way. Young wants this to last, to stave off the shadows of _Destiny_ at the edges of his brain for as long as possible, but Rush seems to have other plans. Impulsive and impatient and wild and Young never expected anything else.

The sheets are tangled around their legs, and Young doesn’t fight as Rush undresses them both, using all his energy to fight off _Destiny_ just a little longer, longer, long enough to pull Rush to him and whisper something, anything, to feel his skin, warm and sweaty and boneless next to him. It’s a battle Young loses.

***

Young sleeps the sleep of the chemically-induced, and he gains consciousness barely able to think past _Destiny’s_ hold on his body. It’s an effort to get out of bed, his knee protesting and his head pounding worse than he’s ever felt before. There’s sun streaming through the windows and, distantly, he hears voices, rapid and excited and familiar, and Young has the foresight left to pull on boxers and a t-shirt before he limps into the living room.

Rush is there, offering him a small smile and a hand on the small of his back that holds back the headache, just slightly, just long enough for Young to recognize the other two figures in Rush’s apartment: Colonel Samantha Carter and Dr. Rodney McKay. More than Young can handle on his best days.

“No, no, no. They said you’d grown soft on that ship of yours, and I didn’t believe them. Not the Great Samantha Carter, I said, but, here’s the proof. Right here.” McKay gestures emphatically at one of the equations on Rush’s windows. They all have whiteboard markers in their hands, and there are a number of additional panes of equations that must have been filled in this morning.

“Making progress?” He asks.

Rush frowns at the windows. “Slightly.” He wraps his fingers in the back of Young’s t-shirt. The pain recedes a little and, not for the first time, he’s convinced that Rush understands more of what’s happening here than he lets on. “They,” he waves at Carter and McKay, “showed up at dawn.”

“With donuts,” Carter interjects.

“And coffee.” McKay adds.

“There’s more in the kitchen, if you’re inclined towards heart-attack-inducing levels of artificial sugar.” Rush starts to steer them towards the kitchen, but Young waves him off.

“Nah, I’m good. I’m just gonna-” He lowers himself to the couch and surreptitiously squeezes Rush’s hand before letting go. The pain comes rushing in. “Just wake me when you solve it.”

***

Rush doesn’t wake him up. Instead, he wakes in _Destiny’s_ infirmary, smelling that strange mix of modern anti-septic and Ancient medicinals. It must be late – it’s quiet and dark behind his eyelids – and, when he tries to lift his hand, he feels the restraints around his wrists. He settles into them, taking a mental inventory of his body.

Headache, not the miserable, pounding force that he had felt before, but there, lodged into the base of his spine as if it’s taken up permanent residence there. Muscle aches – shoulder, hip, abdomen – remnants of _Destiny’s_ hold on him, or signs of a struggle in the infirmary that left him in these restraints, he doesn’t know. And his knee, his knee burns the way it did so many months ago, when he flew through the Stargate from Icarus to land on it, and he’s pretty sure he’s managed to tare it again somehow.

None of that compares, however, to the ache, embedded deep in his chest, at the thought that this is it. He can’t go back in, not in the shape he’s in. Rush either succeeded or he didn’t, but either way he’s on his own. And even if he does succeed, Young doesn’t know what kind of man he will be. In the past few days, Young has blurred the two Rush’s into one image, one man, a man he knows and, God help him, a man he can finally admit he wants. Possibly more than he’s ever wanted anyone in his lifetime. 

Not that it matters. That Rush – the one in Young’s head – doesn’t exist. Possibly he never has.

“Colonel?”

TJ’s voice is soft, as if she’s trying not to upset him, and, with one last effort, he pushes the ache aside and opens his eyes.

“Rush?” His voice scratches, and she brings an Ancient version of a straw to his lips.

“Slowly.” She warns. “It’s been over forty-eight hours. We had to give you an IV.”

Young glances down to see the tube in his arm, the area around it bruised blue and purple. “Did I hurt you?”

She shakes her head. “Greer restrained you.” She looks regretfully at the restraints around his wrists. “You hurt yourself more than anyone else.”

He nods. “My knee?”

She grimaces. “Yeah. You’re gonna need to do some physical therapy on that.”

“Great,” he growls, as well as he can in this state. She’s avoiding his question, and that can only mean, “Rush?”

She smiles, small and reassuring, and so damn understanding that Young turns his head away. “He’s fine. Headache. A little under-nourished. He left with Eli about an hour ago.”

“Does he-” _remember_ , Young wants to ask, but it’s too much to ask from TJ, so he doesn’t. 

She hears it anyway, unspoken and impossible and Young starts to wonder what he said, what he did, while his brain was in _Destiny’s_ simulation. “Talk to Eli,” she tells him, as she begins to undo the restraints on his wrists.

He looks at her fingers hopefully. “Can I-”

“No,” she orders, stern and in control and Young has always known to argue with that tone. “You’re staying the night. You can talk to him in the morning.”

“The morning?” He repeats, slowly, tasting it on his tongue. The last two mornings he’s woken up in Rush’s bed and, fuck, he can’t be thinking things like that. 

***

“Welcome back, sir. I bring breakfast paste and a large glass of water.” Greer places his offerings beside Young’s bed with a flourish. 

Young had forgotten, before, how nice it was to eat real food, and now he’s going to have to forget all over again and eat what’s on offer, if TJ’s not-so-subtle glare from the other side of the infirmary is anything to go by. “Thanks, Sergeant.”

“No problem.” He settles in his seat and rests his boots on the edge of Young’s bed, taking a bite of his own bowl of paste. “I hear you’ve had a hard time of it the past few days.”

Young glares. “I’m fine.”

“I brought your gun-” Greer glances at the end of the bed, where he’s rested Young’s gun, then looks back at Young apologetically. “-crutch-thing.”

“Doctor-patient confidentiality apparently has no meaning halfway across the universe.”

Greer shrugs. “Scott named me his second. In case. Eli said we should be prepared.” Greer narrows his eyes, sitting at the triangulation of embarrassment, pride, and apprehension.

Young takes a moment to eat a few bites of paste before he smiles at Greer. “Scott made a good choice, Sargent. It’s a position we should have filled months ago.”

“Why, thank you, sir,” Greer grins at him, finishing off his paste with a large bite. “As part of my job description, I need to make sure you eat.”

“I can take it back,” Young growls, but he eats, under the gazes of both TJ and Greer and Young doesn’t want them working together on anything ever again. When he finishes, Greer drops his boots to the ground and takes the empty bowl.

“If you promise to drink your water, I can leave you with Eli.” Greer nods to the side, where Eli and TJ are deep in conversation, and Young hadn’t even heard Eli come in. Eli’s shooting furtive little glances in Young’s direction, and he sighs, ushering Eli over.

“Thank you, Greer,” Young holds out his hand for Greer to shake. Greer places the glass of water in it, shoots of a floppy salute, and pats Eli’s shoulder on his way out.

“Hey, Colonel.”

“Eli.” Young motions to Greer’s vacated seat. “Have a seat.”

“Okay.” Eli seems nervous and jumpy, but he takes the seat anyway. “How’re you feeling?”

Young shrugs. “I’ll recover.”

“ _Destiny_ did a number on your brain.”

Thinking about it remind Young of the pulsing that burns up his spine and finishes in the area behind his eyes. It reminds him of the migraines his mother used to get, when she’s wave him and his brothers away while she lay in a dark room with a cloth over her eyes. Young hadn’t understood it then. He sure understand it now. “There’s a little pain,” he admits.

“Yeah.” Eli picks at the sheets by Young’s right hand, turning his head thoughtfully. “When you were in there, what’d it feel like?”

“The headache?”

“Yeah.”

“Bad.” Young pauses. He doesn’t want to admit this. Not to anyone. Definitely not to Eli. But, he needs help, and he’s certainly not going to talk to Rush about this particular development. “It got better when I was near him.”

“Who?” Eli asks, quickly, then holds up his hand. “Oh, Rush, right. Really? Huh.” He pauses, before repeating, “huh.” Then he looks up. “That must have been awkward.”

It’s so simple and familiar and truthful that it surprises a chuckle out of Young. “You have no idea.”

“Well,” Eli shrugs. “It’s kinda cool. Like your _Destiny_ kryptonite or something. That’s cool.” His expression grows thoughtful again.

“What? Eli, I’m in no mood to decipher pop culture metaphors at the moment.”

“Huh? Oh, right, right. It’s just-” Eli pauses, seeming to gather himself, before straightening his shoulders. “I need to do some more research, and we need to talk to Rush, but, maybe-” He sighs. “I’m not so sure that _Destiny_ was just testing Rush.”

“What does that mean?”

Eli shrugs. “I’m not sure yet. I just get the feeling that there’s something else going on here. Something involving both of you.”

That’s more than Young can process right now. “Rush had the firewall.”

“Yeah, true,” Eli trails off, looking away in that way he does when he’s solving a big problem in his head.

“This is important, Eli. If _Destiny_ has a secret agenda here, we need to know about it.”

“Right, yeah, I know. It’s just – _Destiny’s_ a spaceship, you know? She doesn’t talk to us in the same way we talk to each other. Sometimes it’s hard to decode.” 

“She almost killed me, in there. Are you telling me that that was _Destiny’s_ way of talking to me?”

Eli shrugs apologetically. “Maybe? I don’t know. I have to run some equations and talk to Volker and-”

Young waves him off. “Go, go. Keep me updated.”

“Right. Thanks.” Eli pushes the chair back with a large scrape, then pauses, his hands still fidgeting with the corner of Young’s hospital blanket. “And, Colonel? Just- talk to him, alright?”

Young doesn’t need to ask who, and he doesn’t need to ask why. It doesn’t matter. Rush is the absolute last person he should talk to right now, when there’s so much he doesn’t know: whether Rush remembers and, even if he remembers everything, what he’s feeling and what he wants; what Young, himself, wants, now that he’s back on _Destiny_ with responsibilities and a crew to keep alive and the Nakai nipping at their heels and TJ watching his every move; what _Destiny’s_ role in all of this is.

The headache is back, full force.

***

When TJ releases him a few hours later, it’s under strict orders to go directly to his quarters to rest in his own bed. Orders he promptly ignores, in favor of heading to the control room and checking on his crew. James and Scott are there, along with Park and Volker and, thankfully, not Rush.

“He’s in the secondary control room. With Brody,” Park tells him, helpfully, the minute he enters, and it’s starting to worry Young how easily everyone’s able to read him. Park doesn’t even bother using Rush’s name.

Young snaps at her. “If he isn’t here to give me the scientists’ report, then you do it.”

“Ahh,” She glances at Volker, then back at Young. “We’re good. Everything’s good. We’re on course, no fluctuations in life support or our general energy readings. Things are- good,” she finishes, trailing off.

“I’ve been out of commission for four days and everything is ‘good’?”

She shrugs. “Yeah.”

He turns on Scott. “Lieutenant?”

He shrugs. “She’s right, sir. I’ve sent you my report but, it was quiet, sir.” _With you and Rush out_ the unspoken accusation, and Young bristles.

“I want a briefing. Fourteen hundred hours. Military and civilian.”

“Yes, sir,” both Park and Scott agree, and Young turns, leaning heavily on the butt of his gun and limping out of the room. It isn’t far to the secondary control room, but it takes Young a long time to get there. It’s painful going, each step jarring muscles and ligaments and that pain still wedged deep in his brain.

When he gets to the secondary control room, Rush and Brody and Chloe are there, heads bent over a monitor and talking, quietly, together. They look up when Young enters, and Young thinks he sees, for just a moment, a flash of something sad and resigned in Rush’s eyes, before Rush looks away.

“Hey Colonel. I’m glad you’re up and about.” Chloe offers him a half-smile, clasping her hand around Brody’s bicep and pulling him away from the monitor. “We were just finishing up.”

Young nods, not taking his eyes off of Rush and not trusting him to speak. Rush looks- different? The same? Young doesn’t even know anymore, as he fights back the flashes in his mind. Flashes of Rush in this very room, bent over consuls, hair swept over his eyes, fingers flying over screens as he argues furiously with Young. Flashes of Rush, flushed pink and warm, hair dark against cream-colored pillows and those same fingers flying across Young’s body.

Young feels off-balanced. He reaches out, steadying himself on Rush’s consul, fingers splayed centimeters from Rush’s. It’s intoxicating, the image, the thoughts, and Young hears Rush’s voice catch. He looks up, and Rush is looking at him, the skin of his neck flushed where Young can see it above his t-shirt.

“Eli tells me that you came after me. Into _Destiny’s_ simulation.” Rush pauses, then says, simply, “Thank you.”

“Your welcome.”

“We’re both here, so I can assume that we were successful?”

Young was expecting it, had assumed it even, but it doesn’t make the spike in his headache any easier to take. “You don’t remember anything?”

Rush shrugs, but doesn’t look at him. “I remember working on the FTL drives. Then I remember waking up in the infirmary. Lieutenant Johansson tells me there were three days in between.”

“It was-” Young is feeling so many things – loss and frustration and anger – and he settles on the latter. “It was _Destiny’s_ way of making you deal with Novus.”

“So Eli tells me.” Rush has turned back to the console, and is effectively ignoring him.

“So?”

“So, what?”

“Have you? Dealt with Novus? Or can I expect another trip through _Destiny’s_ version of a Freudian slip?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“Yes. Now, please, I have nothing more to say on the matter and much work to do.”

“Not talking about it had us both stuck in a computer-generated alternate universe fighting for our lives. I don’t think not talking about it is an option anymore.”

“And we survived it. It’s done. I already thanked you for it.” Rush looks up, the corner of mouth crooked. “I won’t do it again.”

“Oh,” Young’s eyes narrow. “I would never dream of asking that of you.”

“Fuck you.”

 _I did. I’d like to. Again._ “Rush-”

“I have things to do, if you’re done interrogating me.”

“I’m not-” Young sighs. “It’s not over just because you overcame some psychological trauma that you don’t even remember.”

Rush glares at him. “I assure you, Colonel, you don’t want to get into an argument about psychological trauma.”

Young flinches. It wasn’t so long ago that Young, himself, was drinking himself out of his command and fighting _Destiny_ -created scenarios.

“But, if you’d like to talk about Lieutenant Johansson and the baby, I assure you I am quite a good listener. If I want to be.”

“I am not talking about that. Not with you. Not with anyone.”

“Glad we’re on the same page.” Rush pushes past him. “Good day, Colonel.”

That went about as well as Young had expected. Rush didn’t remember anything, and, with the realization of that lost, it had been devastatingly easy to fall back into their old fighting style. The sense of finality settles over Young’s shoulders, the weight pressing into his already pounding headache, and maybe TJ was right to send him to bed.

***

It’s a slow recovery. Slower than last time. He feels like he’s lacking the motivation to push himself this time, although the sympathetic looks from TJ and Eli are almost enough to get him through his daily physical therapy routines. He feels like he’s lost something, possibly the most important thing he ever had, except, it was never his to loose. It was two days in a world that doesn’t exist, with a man who came into being in a flash and left just as quickly. 

Or, at least that’s what Eli tells him. Young likes to think that Rush is still there, in that apartment, working with the SGC, maybe finding Icarus and going to a _Destiny_ of his own, a safer, more prepared _Destiny_ , and, maybe, maybe missing Young. Like Young is missing him. 

Which is ridiculous, because Rush is here. Acerbic and argumentative and a force of nature, filling every room he’s in in a way that has Young’s headache easing, even here, on _Destiny_. A ship he’s gotten used to. Home, more than anyplace has been home since his home with Emily stopped feeling anything like his. 

But now he feels like a host in his own home. Again. He’s jumping at shadows, worried that Rush is on the other side of every corridor, hoping that he is, wanting desperately for him not to be. He dreams of Rush at night – that Rush or this Rush or some combination of the two, it doesn’t really matter anymore – a Rush that follows him during the day, a shadow, a warm, destructive, uncomfortable weight that he’s grown disturbingly used to. 

He feels, somehow, that is his test. If Rush has to learn how to live in the computer-generated alternate reality, it’s Young’s challenge to learn to live without it. As if, somehow, _Destiny_ is still punishing him for entering in the first place. Or, as Eli keeps telling him, _Destiny_ is still trying to tell him something. Reminding him, weeks later, after the physical reminders have faded to a limp and residual headaches, that there’s something still unresolved.

***

It's been a long day. Dropping out of FTL next to a promising planet, Young had sent three teams to gather fruit and a strange purple bean that grew in abundance and a mineral that Volker and Brody assured him would work like tin after they sent it through some process that Young had tuned out. Rush has insisted on going, to supervise the retrieval of the tin-like substance, and Young had tried to follow, but TJ had given him medical orders to supervise from _Destiny_. 

It had all gone well for the first few hours, and he had even been planning a few days of shore leave for the crew when the call had come in from Rush, frantic and desperate-sounding in a way Young hadn’t heard before the Novus incident. The planet was settled by tree-dwelling natives who controlled huge, yellow tiger-like creators with dangerous teeth and long legs. Scott had organized the escape well, but TJ was still treating a number of bites and broken limbs and arrow wounds in the infirmary, including Rush, who had been bitten on the forearm trying to save Volker of all people.

Young was happy to be back in his quarters after his requisite visit to the infirmary, touching shoulders and offering his thanks for their service and ignoring Rush and the ache in his chest when he thinks about what could have been. If Rush had lent too far left or right, if he hadn’t raised his right arm to shield his face, if the tiger had fought just a little harder . . . Young stops himself. That way most certainly leads to madness.

There’s a bottle of Volker’s distilled alcohol still under his desk and Young is halfway through a glass when his door chimes. He struggles up from the couch, his knee protesting after being pushed all day as Young helped pull the injured through the gate. He leans against the bulkhead as he opens the door.

Rush is on the other side. His eyes are bright, warm and hysterical and so, so familiar and Young has to look down, away, focusing on the angry bandage wrapped around his arm from wrist to elbow. He reaches out, unthinking, and Rush grabs his hand, stepping forward and pushing their hands above Young’s head to hold him against the bulkhead. The door swishes shut behind them and it’s the last sound Young registers before Rush kisses him.

It’s everything Young’s missed and nothing like he remembers. Rush’s body is shaking against him, compressed frustration and rage and arousal and Young feels it, all of it, as he grabs for Rush’s hips and pulls him close, as close as possible, until the lengths of their bodies are pressed together. Rush is hard against Young’s thigh, and Young bends his leg and presses his thigh between Rush’s, pressing, pressing, until Rush groans and bites at Young’s bottom lip, drawing blood and a gasp that pulls at him.

Everything about this pulls at him, bringing forward the ache in his mind and his chest and his knee and it takes everything he has to squeeze his fingers around Rush’s injured forearm. Rush hisses, dropping his injured hand and pulling back just far enough for Young to think. 

“Fuck.”

“Yeah,” Young agrees, breathing deep, hiccupping gasps through his lungs. “What are you doing?”

“No talking.” Rush thrusts his hips against Young’s flexed thigh, his eyes going dark and warm with arousal. Reflexively, Young presses upwards, feeling a little thrill when Rush’s hips stutter and his mouth goes slack.

“We can’t do this.” Young argues. “We can’t. For my own sanity. You can’t do this to me. Not after all this time.” But Rush presses his injured hand between Young’s legs and Young belays his words with an involuntary thrust forward, into him, desperate and aching and with a needy little whine.

Rush surges forward, catching Young’s lower lip between his and pulling at the cut he made earlier. Young can’t think anymore, can barely stand, and he puts both his feet on the ground for some semblance of balance. Rush whispers, warm and wet and breathy against his mouth, “I want this.”

With his injured hand, Rush undoes Young’s BDU’s, easing the zipper down just far enough to get his hand on Young’s straining dick. Rush’s fist is too tight, his hand too dry, the cotton of his bandage catching and scratching on the underside of Young’s head, but it’s perfect.

It may have been a minute or an hour, Young doesn’t know, but he’s teetering on the edge when a frustrated growl and a scrape of clothing brings his attention back to Rush, and, with a valiant effort, he stills his hips and, in Rush’s moment of surprise, pushes them back from the wall and, wrapping a hand around Rush’s wrist, pulls him to the bed.

“Undress,” he orders, stripping, himself, as quickly as he can before joining Rush, naked and flushed and here, on _Destiny_ , in Young’s quarters, in his bed, and it’s too much to think about as he lowers himself over Rush’s body.

“God,” Rush murmurs, behind his knees and adjusting his hips until Young is cradled between Rush’s thighs. Their bellies are slick with sweat and precome and Young thrusts, experimentally. “Oh god,” Rush groans. “Again.”

Rush’s hands are hard, gripping into Young’s hips and urging him, forcing him, forward, hard and desperate and too fast to catch any real traction or pressure or rhythm. But their dicks are rubbing against each other, and Young focuses on the bruises forming on his hips and the harsh sounds of Rush’s breaths in his ear, and he digs his toes into the bed, thrusting and pulling.

He buries his fingers in Rush’s hair, anchoring his movements as they pick up speed and strength. Young’s knee hurts, his head aches, his shoulder is protesting every thrust forward, back, forward, back, but he grasps onto weeks of worry and frustration and unreleased arousal and pushes past all of it to move faster, press harder, give more, when Rush gasps and groans and orders him to.

It’s too much and it’s over before either of them would want it to be but long after either of their bodies can handle. Slowly, cautiously, Rush drops his knees to the bed and Young rolls over, spreading out on his back and flexing his knee experimentally. He groans.

“We’ve done that before.” Rush says, as if he’s trying the words out on his tongue.

“Yeah.” Young frowns. His knee hurts, searing, burning pains that are counteracted by the realization that, for the first time since he entered that computer simulation over a month ago, his headache is entirely gone. He turns his head and offers Rush a wry smile. “Well, not like that.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-” Rush waves vaguely in the direction of the door. “That wasn’t my best moment.” He sits up, bending his knees and dropping his head between them. His fingers are twisted in his hair and Young can almost feel him thinking.

Young pushes himself into a seat position, careful not to jostle his knee. “You didn’t hear me protesting. Not really.”

Rush ignores him. “I’ve been having dreams. Since we got out of _Destiny’s_ simulation. Although, they’re not dreams. They don’t feel like dreams. I wake up,” Rush frowns, as if confused about the memories and surprised that he’s willing to put voice them up, “missing you. And it’s the most real feeling I’ve ever felt.” He pauses, then turns his eyes on Young. “What did we _do_ in there?”

Young doesn’t know how to answer that. He doesn’t know how to explain who they were, separate, together, as part-them and part-better, more prepared, more open people willing to give this, them, the chance they never will here on _Destiny_. People before Icarus, before cancer and divorce and the SGC and the pressure of responsibility put them on separate sides of – what? – some divide that even Young can’t find anymore. If he ever could.

“We trusted each other,” Young tells him simply, before smiling ruefully. “Eventually, anyway.”

“And-?” Rush motions between their chests.

Young shrugs, looking down at the sheets pooled between their cooling bodies. “We cared about each other. I cared about you. Both of you. Who you were, in there; who we were, together.”

Rush looks at him, as if he can read anything from the position of Young’s body and, for an instant, Young’s sure that he can and, perhaps, has been able to all along. “They weren’t dreams,” Rush finally concludes.

“No.”

“They’re memories.”

“Yes.”

“His memories.”

Young doesn’t know how to answer that.

“You miss him.”

“No.” And Young had thought – when he let himself think about it – that this would be hard. Choosing between that world and this one, that Rush and this one, but it’s not. Not at all. He reaches for Rush’s hand. “No, Rush. His memories, your memories. They’re the same. You and him? You’re not so different.”

“He dresses better.”

Young chuckles. “Yeah.”

“You dress the same.”

“Uniform, yeah.” Young pauses, holding Rush’s hand hard, as if Rush might run away. Again. “That man – the man in your memories? I’m him, but I’m not. I- it’s hard to explain,” Young finishes, frustrated with his inability to put these feelings into words that Rush can understand.

But Rush holds his hand just as tight. “The man I wake up missing? I miss the parts that remind me of you.”

Young doesn’t know what to say to that, because it’s so like Rush to do that, to take weeks of worry and pain and self-recrimination and brush them aside as if they mean nothing. There’s a part of Young that wants to hang on to them, the same part of Young that lies awake at night and thinks of Emily and Telford and what might have been with TJ and what would have been if Rush had stayed on that planet and never made it back to them. It’s a part of himself that Young usually fights with alcohol.

Suddenly, everything slots into place. _Destiny_ testing Young after Carmen’s death. _Destiny_ testing Rush after Novus. _Destiny_ testing them both now, because this wasn’t just about Rush. It never was. This was always about them, together, trust and affection and, fuck, Eli’s been trying to tell him for weeks that _Destiny_ is some kind of Ancient matchmaker. And it might have been about them both since the moment they arrived two years ago.

“Eli’s never going to let us live this down,” Young says, because he can’t say it all.

“I’ll take care of Eli,” Rush promises, and it makes Young chuckle, and, Jesus, this is it.

He pulls Rush forward.

**Author's Note:**

> I pushed a note under your door  
> Here’s how it goes, things come to blows  
> But we don’t want this anymore  
> I crack the codes, you end the war
> 
> \- Andrew Bird, _Not a Robot, But a Ghost_


End file.
